Turkish government has dismissed the claims over a second group of Kurdish peshmerga forces will be sent by the Iraqi Kurdish government via Turkey to enter Syrian border town of Kobani to help assist Kurdish groups fighting ISIL militants. “It is certainly not true that a second convoy or armed force will go to Kobani (via Turkey),” Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc told a late night press briefing following Monday’s Council of Ministers’ meeting in Ankara.
“We have recieved neither a demand nor any notice, and there is also no preparation for such a move,” Arinc added.
Turkey had recently given the go-ahead for the passage of a group of around 160 Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces through its territories to reach the battle-torn town lying on Syria -Turkey borderline, whose mission was to repel theISIL threat to the Kurdish town.
The Kobani-bound peshmerga troops landed on a private plane at Turkey’s GAP Airport in the southeastern province of Sanliurfa from Iraqi Kurdish capital Erbil early Wednesday, along with a separate truck convoy carrying their heavy weaponry via the Habur border crossing in the southeastern Sirnak province.
After entering Turkish soil, the convoy with the troops and their weaponry on board crossed the Yumurtalik border gate late Friday into Kobani.
The battle for control of the strategic Syrian town between ISIL militants and armed Kurdish groups has been raging since mid-September when ISIL entered the town. An estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees, including some 190,000 from Kobani, are being sheltered in camps across Turkey after fleeing the fighting.
Turkey has also been strongly supporting a proposal before the international community and the UN to establish a no-fly zone and a safe haven for refugees inside Syria near the Turkish border.
/trend.az/
